Lawsuit: St. Mary’s ER nurses go no lunch and no pay

Four former emergency room employees have filed a class action suit against St. Mary’s Healthcare in Amsterdam claiming the hospital automatically deducted 30-minute lunch breaks from their paychecks but did not allow them to take the breaks.

“They were almost always denied their meal period,” said Sarah J. Burger, the employees’ lawyer, of Ackerman, Wachs & Finton in Albany.

According to the suit, a manager sent emails to employees instructing them not to document when they worked through their lunch breaks.

Had it been documented, the hospital may have been required to pay overtime to the employees, according to the suit.

Four former employees are named in the lawsuit, but Burger said up to 50 more St. Mary’s emergency room employees, past and present, may be eligible to join the action.

Named in the suit were nurse Anne Mancini Church, nurse Kenneth K. Varriale, nurse Tina Bagley, and patient care technician Hollie King. All live in Fulton County or Saratoga County.

The four stopped working for St. Mary’s in mid- 2011. Burger would not say why or how they left their jobs, or whether it was related to the meal breaks.

St. Mary’s lawyer, Michael Billok of Bond Schoeneck & King in Albany, said he could not comment on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed in United States District Court, Northern District. Burger said she doesn’t know how much money the workers may be owed, but said she is seeking unpaid wages for the previous three to six years.

Most of the nurses worked 12 hour shifts and the hospital’s computer system that tracks employee hours automatically deducted a 30-minute meal period each day, the suit said.

“There is a cafeteria in the hospital so they’d have someone get food for them and then they’d eat on their feet,” Burger said.

Because a substantial amount of that time was spent performing work duties, Burger said the workers should have been paid.

Cathleen Crowley

5 Responses

This happens all over. Nurses’ unpaid breaks should have to be written on the schedule/assignment sheet so management knows when they have to be covered. They use the nurses’ sense of obligation to each other not to work short to coerce them into not taking breaks.